GRAPHISOFT, a Building Information Modeling (BIM) architectural software developer, announces that Urban Strategies, a GRAPHISOFT client based in Toronto has won a number of prestigious awards for work recently completed in Singapore, all designed using ArchiCAD.
Punggol, the sustainable waterfront town in the tropics, earned Urban Strategies an award in the 2014 Waterfront Center Excellence on the Waterfront Awards in the Waterfront Plans category. Innovations in urban design, tropical building typologies and conservation were integral to achieving the vision for this 3.7-square-mile area—a sustainable framework of mixed-use districts with a special emphasis on diversity, flexibility and quality of life. The close integration of nature and water within an urban living concept are key elements of this tropical garden city. In close collaboration with Singapore’s Housing and Development Board, Urban Strategies led a multi-disciplinary team which included Buro Happold along with Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg.
Urban Strategies was also recognized for its work on the Bidadari Estate Master Plan at the 14th Singapore Institute of Architects Architectural Design Awards, in the Special Categories category. Their plan for this 3.7-square-mile property, a former cemetery site located in Singapore’s central region, envisions a “Community in a Garden” featuring a generously landscaped setting, 12,000 residential units, community and commercial uses clustered around subway stations with a large regional park and numerous greenway park connectors. In close collaboration with Singapore’s Housing and Development Board, Urban Strategies led the plan with MKPL Architects, along with ARUP.
“ArchiCAD enables us to balance between the ‘pragmatic and poetic’ requirements in our work: seamlessly developing our designs with the level of accuracy and immediate feedback our clients expect, while creating visually engaging imagery and graphics, which bring our work into the best light,“ says Michel Trocmé, partner, Urban Strategies Inc.